I have seen reports here, but haven't seen them substantiated by looking at the hardware, that the Roamio has an extra internal amplifier because of the 6-way split. This seems consistent with various reports like this one and other reports that there are occasionally more problems when multiple tuners are on the same channel (eg after reboot). Has someone verify this on the hardware?

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I can confirm at least in my situation that I had a base and a pro and the base showed signal levels in the high 80's while the pro showed levels of high 90's and 100 using the same cable tv coax. I took that to mean there's some internal amplification going on in the pro.

If your signal strength is above 90 you need to get it lower. Tivo told me between 85 and 90 is the best. Any higher and it causes problems. If Comcast wont give you an antenuator then go pick up a 4 way splitter and put it in line. That will drop you 7 DB's

If your signal strength is above 90 you need to get it lower. Tivo told me between 85 and 90 is the best. Any higher and it causes problems. If Comcast wont give you an antenuator then go pick up a 4 way splitter and put it in line. That will drop you 7 DB's

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My signal strength sits at 100% and I have never had a single problem. The SNR is much more important. The Roamio's are much better at dealing with a high SNR than the Premiere was. Btw, the SNR has nothing to do with the original posters issues.

No, I doubt signal has anything to do with the original poster. Either his Roamio is defective or Comcast doesn't know how to pair his card correctly.

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I had pretty much the same symptoms as the OP (on two different Roamios) and the only thing that fixed it was putting a 4-way splitter in-line.

And I don't think it's Cox, because before TiVo told me to drop the SNR down to the mid-30s, I could swap out the Roamio the old XL4 that it was replacing, and the card would pair the card perfectly on the XL4, every time. Did that probably 5-6x during the troubleshooting. Then swap the XL4 with the Roamio, and have them pair the same card the same way they just did with the XL4, and no-go. Showed perfectly fine on their end, but no encrypted channels on my end.

I had pretty much the same symptoms as the OP (on two different Roamios) and the only thing that fixed it was putting a 4-way splitter in-line.

And I don't think it's Cox, because before TiVo told me to drop the SNR down to the mid-30s, I could swap out the Roamio the old XL4 that it was replacing, and the card would pair the card perfectly on the XL4, every time. Did that probably 5-6x during the troubleshooting. Then swap the XL4 with the Roamio, and have them pair the same card the same way they just did with the XL4, and no-go. Showed perfectly fine on their end, but no encrypted channels on my end.

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It is possible but the original poster already noted they had other cablecard TiVos on the same line with no issues. In my experience, the Roamio is less susceptible to SNR issues than the Premiere (but maybe more so than the TiVo HD). But without the original poster giving us any details to the SNR or to their cablecard pairing screen info, it is impossible to tell.

All I do is unplug/remove the old TiVo, swap the cable card to the new TiVo, put the new TiVo on the shelf + plug the wires back in, and then call Cox to pair the cable card with the new TiVo.

Zero problems pairing a Premiere.
Zero problems pairing an XL4.
Absolutely could not get a Roamio paired (using the exact same everything that the Premiere and XL4 used) until a 4-way splitter was added in-line.

But without the original poster giving us any details to the SNR or to their cablecard pairing screen info, it is impossible to tell.

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Agreed, which is why I was confused when you said "Btw, the SNR has nothing to do with the original posters issues."

I just wanted to share my experience with the OP, as I had pretty much the same symptoms, down to the cable company system reporting the Roamio paired properly, but the Roamio didn't (and couldn't tune all channels). Maybe he's got the same issue, maybe not.

Because the original poster has no issues viewing the locals. That points to the more likely cablecard pairing or defective Roamio.

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That's my point. I had two Roamios with cablecard pairing issues. The solution to fix the cablecard pairing was to lower the SNR/signal levels by installing a 4-way splitter. Only then would the cablecard pair with the Roamio, which allowed the Roamio to view everything.

Tivo did some troubleshooting and said this is a known issue with some comcast cisco/sci atlanta cable cards and the roamio. they said for the least issues ask for motorola. If they can't give me that I must have firmware version 1.5.3 for cisco. the 1.5.2 I currently have doesn't work, and won't work. I must have 1.5.3.

and comcast says they have no motorola and no 1.5.3 in my market, and while they're offering service on the cable cards in circulation they're not offering anymore. They're are none available of 1.5.3 or motorola anything in my area.

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Just for giggles can you post what the full firmware version number running on your CableCard, so far I have only seen the first three digits mentioned, ie; "152" as being the firmware you have and "153" being the firmware Tivo mentioned would work but Comcast doesn't support.

I am running firmware "PKEY1.5.2_F.p.2401" on a Cisco CableCard and have had to limit my Roamio Pro to 5 active tuners to have a fully stable service. Any firmware that is older than this firmware release on a Cisco/SA CableCard will not work on a 6 tuner Roamio. The Tivo website states the minimum firmware for Cisco/SA CableCard is "PKEY1.5.2_F.p.2801", hence the problem of only 5 tuners working for me at this time. Charter just shrugs their shoulders at upgrading firmware to a more current release...

It is my understanding that the ultimate solution is to upgrade the firmware to PKEY1.5.3_F.p.1101 for full functionality on the Roamio Pro, but I believe that firmware release PKEY1.5.2_F.p.3001 also works with all 6 Roamio Pro tuners active according to reports by other users.

BTW, to activate/deactivate the number of tuners on your Roamio 6 tuner box:

Go to Settings > Channels > Channel List
Enter one of the following number sequences using the number buttons on the remote.
(you will here a sound similar to when you press the "Thumbs Up" button once the code is entered properly).

These codes will tell Roamio the how many tuners it can use.
- 88633 = use 3 tuners
- 88634 = use 4 tuners
- 88635 = use 5 tuners
- 88636 = use 6 tuners
Then force a reboot of the Tivo, very important! Do not skip this last step!

It is my understanding that the ultimate solution is to upgrade the firmware to PKEY1.5.3_F.p.1101 for full functionality on the Roamio Pro, but I believe that firmware release PKEY1.5.2_F.p.3001 also works with all 6 Roamio Pro tuners active according to reports by other users.

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PKEY1.5.2_F.p.3001 does not work with six tuners. It may work sometimes but eventually you will get errors.

I have tuners 0 - 5 running according to DVR Diagnostics for a total of 6.

I just know it's a heck of a lot and enough for us. lol

We have the roamio and 3 mini's in our house, but they're never all running at once.

only me, my wife, and my 4 year old here.

We usually only use 4% of our hard drive of shows.

as for my other issues

I have tech supervisor and tivo senior tech on conference call in my home.
two smart guys.

Tivo basically said I need the new firmware, to help fix it. Saying Cisco put it out and it helps. Comcast says they're beta testing the new firmware from cisco on their system and it's not available yet until they work out the kinks. They say the 1.5.3 firmware is causing a black screen issue on their network that they're trying to fix. Only a small amount of tivo users have the 1.5.3 in some markets while they work out the kinks So . 1.5.2 is the best they can do until they finish beta testing.

Tivo swears the SNR needs to be lower. They say somewhere between 29 and 35 is ideal.

Comcast says their SNR rate must be 37-38. They say FCC fines them if it's lower than 35.

Tivo says no FCC requires no lower than 29.

Pissing match here over the SNR.

Comcast saying it will affect my internet signal too.

my outlet where the roamio is , is the same outlet where my modem is. there's a splitter feeding both.

They finally agreed that as long my -6 attenuator is on the split between the tivo and the splitter it would lower the SNR for the tivo roamio only and that's ok.

So . everyone shook hands so to speak.

Im supposed to go buy a - 6db attenuator, if that doesn't help. Tivo will switch out my roamio, if that doesn't help, I wait for comcast to finish beta testing new firmware.

Although about 2 hours later my comcast guru's boss called back and said they had brainstormed with some engineers and wanted to come back and try one more thing .